How could an ad celebrating the American farmer paint such a distorted picture of the people who actually work on farms today? The reality is that farmworkers are systematically underpaid and under-appreciated.

The physical conditions in the tomato fields were extreme. No shade, oppressively hot, with workers running with many pounds of tomatoes on their shoulders. I stood there fully aware that these workers are routinely exploited and sometimes physically enslaved. I had seen the overcrowded worker housing.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the remarkable farmworker organization in Florida that I have written about many times over the years as they continue to win victory after victory in their Campaign for Fair Food, has done it again.

Like any family, the families who own and run Publix gather around their holiday tables and reflect on their joys and struggles. Among those joys, year after year, are soaring profits. Yet they inexplicably continue to turn their backs on the farmworkers who make those profits possible.

For too long, the industry responded to accusations of farm labor abuse with denial and opposition. But today there exists a better way forward embraced by the vast majority of Florida growers.